This blog is a place for me to post my homilies and other assorted things

Sunday, May 24, 2015

Come Holy Spirit

Pentecost 2015 Year B:

Today we celebrate
the feast of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost
is the day when we remember the birth of the Church as we know it. For once the Holy Spirit was poured out on
the Church, she began to carry out her mission.
The Church’s mission is simple: the Church is called to carry out the
very mission of Christ. Just as Christ
was anointed priest, prophet, and king, so the Church is called to teach, lead,
and sanctify. The Holy Spirit gives the
church the power to act in the person of Christ for the salvation of the
world. Today we do well to remember this
fundamental calling. It is also good to
remember that this mission was not given to the apostles alone, but to the
whole Church. Each one of us is called
to embrace this mission and fulfill it in our own special vocation. Whether we are married, single, priests,
sisters, lay persons, we have all received God’s Spirit, given to us to empower
us for our mission.

Now I don’t want
to cause a lot of fear and anxiety, but it is not too much to say that every
one of us is responsible for carrying out the mission of Christ. All of us are responsible to preach the
gospel, to lead others closer to Christ, to make this world a holier place
where God can dwell. I think that now,
more than ever, the world needs the truth of the gospel. There is a bunch of crazy stuff going on in
our times. There is war and
violence. There is poverty and
pain. There is immorality and the
weakening of the life of the family.
These things are all around us.

But, in many ways,
things are not so different than what the apostles faced. Look at what they accomplished. Because of their preaching millions and
billions of people throughout the whole world came to know Christ. They started with nothing, outside of a few
people in Jerusalem, no one had heard of Jesus.
They were able to do great things.
If we can zero in on how they were able to carry out their mission, it
will enlighten us as to how to carry out our mission. Jesus explains it well: the Father will send
the Spirit of Truth, he will testify to me, then you will testify.

As I said above,
it is the Holy Spirit that empowers the Church to carry on the mission of
Christ. It was the Spirit that moved in
the hearts of the apostles to preach the good news. The same Holy Spirit is alive and with us
today, it is this spirit that allows us to fulfill our mission as well.

First, the Spirit
testifies. I think it is perfectly
natural and ok to remember that we still have a lot to learn. None of us is there yet. We all need to open our hearts to the message
of the Spirit. Where do you still need
to grow? Maybe it is in accepting some
truth of the gospel. I know that so many
people in today’s society fail to see the truth of our belief about marriage. So many people struggle to see the value of
every human life. So many people find it
difficult to move away from sin. No
matter where we are on this continuum, today is a day for us to open our hearts
to the Spirit of Truth. He will teach us
and strengthen our faith in the truth.

Then we testify. Once we listen to the Spirit of Truth, he
will strengthen us for our ministry. I
think it always works like that: we are growing in our personal faith, but then
we express that in our lives. One
without the other is incomplete. If we
grow in our life of faith, but it doesn’t move us to look beyond ourselves, we
become that inward looking Church that Pope Francis has been denouncing. But, if we are working in the world without
being guided by the Spirit of truth we become political activists or social
workers. Both have their place, but that
is not the same as carrying out the mission of Christ.